Hoshi no Hai
by ncfan
Summary: They were simple questions, but so important to him. Spoilers for 353. Ulquiorra x Orihime.


**Characters**: Ulquiorra, Orihime**  
Summary**: They were simple questions, but so important to him. Spoilers for 353. Ulquiorra x Orihime.**  
Pairings**: Ulquiorra x Orihime; _twisted_ Ulquiorra x Orihime**  
Warnings/Spoilers**: Chapter 353**  
Timeline**: Chapter 353**  
Author's Note**: Everyone in the Espada, I can't help but think, is just a little afraid of Ulquiorra. Not because he's the most powerful (because he's not, though he does have that second resurrección), but because he's just like that. He's the weird kid of the Espada, whom no one really likes to be around because he's just that creepy. Then comes Orihime, who isn't afraid, and changes his entire life. He's still a bastard when he fights, but Ulquiorra is definitely different after Orihime comes into his life. Also, people, I don't think Ulquiorra is coming back. It would cheapen what happened on the dome if he did. Finally, as _Paper Moon _serves as a companion to _Kage no Tsuki, _so this serves as a companion to _Scattering Ashes._**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

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"Do I frighten you, girl?"

Ulquiorra does not understand fear, even as the final death encroaches upon him and he feels his body dissolving into ash. It is a lightening feeling, actually, and a relief to the intense heaviness that afflicted him.

Fear is one of those incomprehensible sensations that he gave up the day he evolved, and has not felt since. Fear is a sensation that Ulquiorra no longer comprehends or even pretends to understand. Fear is for lesser beings.

At the same time, other lesser sensations are starting to fill his numb veins again, and though he can not identify them, they become more prevalent, more persistent, more likely to bleed out at the edges of his composure. Like trying to grasp sand in a clenched fist; the tighter the grip, the more sand slipped away.

She edges closer. It has always been her; Orihime the catalyst, Orihime the earth-shaker, Orihime, the bringer of change.

And in her, fear is something with which Ulquiorra is very much concerned.

"_What is a heart?" In his voice, there is something that in anyone else would spell frustration, but in him, is merely emptiness. "If I rip open your chest, will I see it inside? If I shatter your skull, will I find it _there_?"_

_Orihime's expression never changes, remaining even, eyes narrowed, and, most of all, unafraid, even if wariness makes her take a step back._

He asks her, because she would know. She of all people, all the people on Hueco Mundo, would know. She would know what a heart is, and she would know if she was afraid of him. Ulquiorra is fully aware of the pride that might compel Orihime to say that she isn't afraid even if it is terror that lances through her skull, and of the willfulness that might keep her from disclosing the nature of the heart.

There is something he needs to know, and only she holds the answers. In order to find the answers, Ulquiorra must needs crack _her_ open.

In time, the girl he serves as jailer comes to consume his every waking thought. Orihime is never far from his mind, long, light auburn hair, skin growing waxen and pinched and almost stretched over her skull, as though her skin has shrunk in the wash. Brown eyes that gleam and glisten but never reveal, despite being so open and guileless.

Eyes that are remote.

Unreachable, that he must reach.

Unknowable, that he must come to know.

Why does it matter? It matters, for one reason, and one alone.

She is the only one who has never expressed fear of him, overtly or subconsciously. Initially, all, from Aaroniero and Szayel-Apporo, even to Starrk and, though he would never admit it, Aizen Sousuke, felt some level of fear of Ulquiorra's quiet, coldly observant ways. Swooping down on them like an overgrown bat. They outgrew their fear, sometimes very quickly, but they remain at their core wary of him and ill at ease in his presence (well, the three rogue Shinigami aren't, but perhaps that is just the voice of arrogance speaking), noticeably tense when he appears out of the shadows.

Inoue Orihime is the only one who has never articulated fear of him. She is wary, yes, but wary in the way of one who knows that the man before her holds her life in his hands. None can be faulted for being cautious in such a situation. Ulquiorra has never seen the wet gleam of fear passing like a milky film over her eyes.

She has changed everything, made the world before Ulquiorra's eyes a vast, unfamiliar landscape. Come in, and turned upside down the fabric of Ulquiorra's life, altering, shaping, changing, tearing out key, vital threads and weaving in her own, like a weaving girl at her loom, weaving the tapestry of fate with a steady hand. And all the while, desire to know of the heart grows. It is the heart, he knows, that makes her unafraid.

The backs of his wings are fading into nothingness, stars of ash, floating away on a cool night breeze. Ulquiorra knows that this is the end. There is no avoiding that all-encompassing darkness that yawns before him, not this time.

He waits for Orihime's response, almost with bated breath; she bits her lip in hesitation, her eyes full and glistening with something unrecognizable, unknowable. She does not speak, the emerald stars at her brow twinkling distantly.

He has asked the question time and again. The droning words are always the same, each spoken more softly than the last and waiting intently for Orihime's reply. He takes the waiting with the same taut tension as he always does, waiting almost for her lips to form the single syllable "Yes", in place of "No". Waiting for her to turn out the lights instead of leaving them ignited, to become like all the others. It would almost be a relief, to be able to forget her and cast her aside, knowing that she is no different.

But she will not allow his eyes to see uniformity.

Orihime always gives him the same answer, every time. So why does he care? Why does he continue to ask?

Again, Orihime takes another step forward, feet uncertain as though she just now learns how to walk. Her hand reaches out, fingers straining towards Ulquiorra's own, cloaked in her own woven tapestry of kindness indestructible and agonized charity. "…No…" Her eyes are full, tears clinging like stars ready to fall to her eyelashes. "You don't."

She blurs, just a little bit, through a smokescreen of sand and ash. And Ulquiorra understands. "…I see." It is what he wanted, to have this affirmation just one more time, and to see the elusive gleam in her eyes, not of sullen defiance, but of the emotions that Ulquiorra could never recognize and will never recognize now. The blessed enigma.

_What is it?_

She is reaching out.

_If I tear open your chest, will I see it inside? If I shatter your skull, will I see it in there?_

Everything is starting to haze. She grows more distant, a figurine small enough to fit in his hand. The wall of ash encroaches upon his consciousness. Oblivion will arrive soon.

_You damn human speak of it so easily, almost as if…_

Out of the darkness that has become reality now, something pale and white is nearing Ulquiorra, stark in the abyss.

_I see… This… Yes…_

It is close, so very close now. He can almost reach out and touch it.

_This thing in my hand, is the heart?_

Though she never reached him, the phantom weight of Orihime's hand is the last thing Ulquiorra feels.


End file.
